UN chief: Putin vows no new moves in Ukraine

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin assured him he had no intention of making another military move into Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin echoed the U.N. chief, saying Putin made clear in a March 18 statement that there was not going to be any new Russian move into Ukraine. He accused unidentified countries of “trying to artificially whip up the atmosphere of international crisis.”

The new Ukrainian government and the West have voiced concerns about a possible invasion into pro-Russian eastern and southern Ukraine after Moscow’s buildup of its troops near the border.

Ban and Churkin spoke to reporters after the secretary-general briefed the Security Council behind closed doors on his recent talks with Putin in Moscow and Ukraine’s leaders in Kiev.

“Some parties were trying to whip up tension — Russian aggression is imminent, or something like that, throwing wild assessments of the presence of our troops allegedly on the border with Ukraine,” Churkin said.

“Our forces in Russia are undergoing their usual routine, staying in their barracks or doing some training,” he said. “But there is no worry of any Russian initiative against Ukraine.”

Churkin said there have been four inspections along the Russia-Ukraine border by about a dozen countries this month — including one by the United States, Germany and Ukraine — “and none of them told us they saw anything particularly disconcerting.”

He said Putin told Russia’s defense minister Friday to return Ukraine’s military hardware from Crimea, adding “this is not something you do if you plan anything dramatic against this country.”